


Parents Will Be Parents

by runrarebit



Series: Misfits Moments [24]
Category: Misfits (TV 2009)
Genre: AU, Alternate Timeline, Angst, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Guilt, M/M, Past Rape/Non-con, Past underage sexual assault, Regret, everyone just having feelings all over everything, internalised victim blaming, mentions of vengeance, some Dark!Simon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-04-11 16:50:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19113796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runrarebit/pseuds/runrarebit
Summary: Set at the beginning of S03E02, I suppose this is a companion toFavours, Fatherhood and Failure(which it happens soon after) in a way, or to put it another way, Nathan's mum reacting to the events ofSpiral Fracture.





	Parents Will Be Parents

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: For the events of Spiral Fracture, basically. 
> 
> I hope you're all having a good week with good weather. Thanks you all, as always, for reading, for commenting, and for leaving kudos! I know I get repetitive about that, but it really dopes mean a lot to me.

In the end he’d decided that the only appropriate response to what Rudy had done was to get some water balloons, fill them with piss, and fling them at the bastard. There was, after all, no guarantee he would have won if he’d attempted the kicking. 

He still feels weird from his discussion with his dad the day before but seeing the look of outrage on the pervert’s face once he realised exactly what he was now dripping with— and hearing his whining for the rest of the day— has done some to improve his mood. Not much, mind.

His boyfriend, and their mates— with the exception of Nikki, who had been smart enough not to answer the phone when Rudy and Alisha had been summoning people to help dispose of the latest set of corpses— are now once more members of the orange jumpsuit brigade. 

The fucking Probation Worker had almost pissed himself laughing when he’d realised that _Simon_ is back under his supervision but _he_ isn’t. Apparently this is somewhat opposite of what the man had expected. Not exactly a flattering picture of what the man thinks of him, but fine— only he’s been warned off distracting his boyfriend— because apparently Probation Worker Man has already worked out he’s living in the Community Centre, doesn’t give a shit, but doesn’t want to have to spend the next seven weeks listening to them near-constantly shagging again— so if he does hang around too much the prick has told him he’ll tell someone about his living arrangements. The kind of someone that will ensure they won’t be his living arrangements for much longer. Also, he’ll possibly face charges for all the breaking in and stealing stuff. 

So, yes, he is trying to be good— if good means lounging about in his nest and admiring Simon from a distance as everyone does maintenance work around the Community Centre — between texts to Jamie and Marnie. Nathan Jr is cute for a baby. He still can’t believe someone named their kid after him—

Anyway, he figures the prick Probation Worker will have enough to deal with on the shagging front now that he’s supervising a Curtis and Alisha that can actually touch— because, unless they’ve got an agreement with Nikki that says they can only get down and dirty when all sets of genitalia are present and accounted for— which he doubts very much from some of what he’s overheard in the bar’s loos— then they’ll be skipping off out of sight very time he turns his back.

He ignores the little voice that says maybe the Probation Worker won’t mind as much, since even when all three of them are shagging in the loos at the bar no one’s ever decided it’s appropriate to tell any of them they sound like a cat getting killed when they’re being fucked— thanks for that Kelly. Thanks so very much. 

So his day’s going ok— not great, because he _is_ still a bit fucked up from the day before, and honestly what he wants to be doing is lying about curled up in Simon’s arms, but it’s ok— and then his undeniably pregnant mum and Jeremy walk into the Community Centre. He sees them before they see him. Sees the dark shadows beneath her eyes. The frantic frazzle of her hair. The way Jeremey is hovering but not touching— because she’s got that look about her that says touching is likely to get someone shouted at—

He ducks down, hoping she won’t spot him, but—

‘Nathan!’ he hears her shout. _Well, shit._ ‘I can see you up there, come down at once!’

He doesn’t know what to do. He really, really doesn’t want to come down there. He really does not want to have whatever conversation this is— maybe if he remains perfectly still and says nothing—

‘I mean it!’ she shouts. He can hear footsteps down below, not just hers and Jezza’s. It sounds like they’re attracting a bit of a crowd. ‘Do you know how hard I’ve been trying to contact you? I’ve been ringing, I’ve been texting— I even emailed you, but you won’t respond! I’m at the end of my rope. We need to talk about this!’ he doesn’t reply. He hears her make a grunt of frustration and next time she talks she’s louder, as if she’s standing right beneath his nest. ‘I had your father on the phone to me last night, hopping into me, _accusing_ me of all sorts— saying I’m a bad mother— saying you’re living here, in the Community Centre, because I chucked you out— telling me— It’s bad enough about Richard, but—’ he hears her clear her throat. ‘Were you lying to him? Is it true?’ he still doesn’t respond, and the next time she speaks it’s almost a wail, ‘Why _didn’t you tell me_ if Father Maher was sexually abusing you back then?!’

He’s pretty sure he can remember asking his dad not to tell his mum about the whole priest— _thing_ — but he’s also not all that surprised. Neither of his parents are great at resisting any opportunity handed to them to have a go at the other. 

‘Well that makes an alarming amount of sense,’ he hears in that familiar, obnoxious, drawl. The Probation Worker. The next thing the man says is, ‘Maybe one of you little shits should go get Barry— oh look, now I’m doing it too. _Simon,_ or whatever serial-killer-face’s name is. Go get him.’ He risks a glance, sees Alisha and Curtis running off together. Rudy, of course, is standing by and watching in fascination. 

The Probation Worker sniffs, then turns his attention to his mum. ‘Look, I’m not one to be criticising your parenting technique, but maybe yelling at your son in public about being sexually abused as a child might not be the best way to handle things, or even really a way to handle things at all.’

‘I don’t see how it’s any of your business,’ she snaps. ‘Who are you, anyway?’ 

‘I’m the Probation Worker—’ says the Probation Worker, ‘not your son’s Probation Worker, because somehow he’s managed to avoid ending back on community service, but I’m still the Probation Worker and you’re still disrupting—‘ the guy’s face scrunches up as he thinks for a moment ‘—any attempted rehabilitation that might be going on here. So maybe take it somewhere else—’ three sets of footsteps, Simon rushing into the room before Alisha and Curtis, ‘—Oh, there you are. Good. You take over, deal with this shit— get it out of the Community Centre— I’ll expect you back later, mind—’

‘You’re really going to let me just go?’ his boyfriend asks, face furrowing in confusion.

‘You’re really going to pretend like you’ll still be here the minute I turn my back?’ the Probation Worker asks, then starts shooing the assorted watchers away, telling them to get back to whatever it is they’re supposed to be doing. 

A moment later Simon is scaling the stairs, dropping to his knees beside him. ‘Are you ok?’

He thinks for a minute, then shakes his head. ‘I don’t want to have to deal with this.’

‘Nathan!’ his mum shouts up at him again. 

‘Just give us a minute!’ Simon shouts back, tone cold, before speaking quietly to him, ‘If you want I’ll try to make her go away.’

He peers down at his mum, sees the stubborn set to her face, ‘I don’t think she’s going to do that,’ he says, and then sighs, ‘I suppose I can’t run from her forever— she’s going to be so angry with me.’

‘She’s _not_ ’ Simon insists.

He peers down at his mum again, ‘But _look_ at her. She already is.’

Simon glances at her as well, ‘I think she’s just worried about you,’ his boyfriend suggests.

He makes a noncommittal noise, has the briefest impulse to chuck a massive, just _massive _tantrum, before he gives up. He should be able to do this— he managed to negotiate all this with his dad— ‘Ok, I’ll come down,’ he calls out to her, ‘but I’m not having this conversation here where fucking _Rudy_ can overhear, so Barry’ll need a moment to get changed.’ __

__She agrees, maybe a bit reluctantly, but she does agree. He clings close to Simon’s side as they climb down the stairs, not looking at her as they creep off to the locker room so Simon can get changed. It’s horrible. He feels like he’s vibrating out of his skin, anxiety clawing at him. ‘I can turn us both invisible and we can sneak past her,’ his boyfriend offers, which just makes him kiss Simon a little desperately and thank him, but no. No._ _

__She’s waiting right outside the locker room when they get out, obviously thinking he might try to make a run for it. Somehow he catches Jeremy’s eye, flinches at the sympathy he sees there. He doesn’t want fucking Jezza feeling sorry for him— but right now he doesn’t have the energy to be a cunt about it, to remind Jeremy exactly why feeling sorry for him is a bad idea._ _

__His mum is silent while they pile into her car, him and Simon in the back seat, his boyfriend’s arm around him the entire time. She drives badly, jerkily, too fast alternating with too slow— and it’s kind of terrifying because the only times she drives like this are when she’s _furious_ with him— before suddenly pulling over in front of a bakery and flinging herself out of the car. He watches her pace, up and down, back and forth in front of the shop window, ignoring all the people giving her funny looks._ _

__‘I’d better go and—’ Jeremy says, the first thing that has slipped out of the man’s mouth the entire time. He pauses, Jezza, with his hand on the door, and then says, ‘It’ll be ok Nathan. Your mum loves you,’ before going to talk to her._ _

__He’s shivering, again, huddled into Simon’s side, trying to leech his boyfriend’s body warmth as his mum and her— _husband_ blather on out there for what seems half an hour, her arms flailing about, tears that he doesn’t want to see on her face. Simon makes soft, shushing noises, petting at him gently, and he thinks how lucky he is, and he thinks how much he doesn’t want to be here, and he thinks wouldn’t it be nice if it was him and Simon for once, shagging in hotels in Spain— Eventually his mum and her husband come back, only she gets in the passenger side and Jeremy gets behind the wheel to drive them all back home. To his _mum’s_ home. It’s not really his anymore. _ _

__She rounds on him the moment they’re inside and snaps ‘Richard!— Did he actually sexually abuse you?’_ _

__He nods, then says the man did when that doesn’t seem enough for her. Then there’s the whole “Why did you say you were lying?” bit, which leads into the “He said he’d cut your face off” conversation, and then she asks “Why didn’t you say something once Richard had left?” and he has to explain, again, how he hadn’t known how to take it back, make her believe him. She sinks down into her favourite armchair then, buries her face in her hands. He can see how she’s shaking. Thinks she might be crying._ _

__He feels sick. Guilty. Wrong and weird and contaminated._ _

__‘I’ll just go put the kettle on,’ Jeremy says, quietly, ‘I think this is the kind of conversation where everyone needs a nice cup of tea. Why don’t you two sit on the couch—?’_ _

__They do so. They wait. Eventually she looks up again, eyes red-rimmed, cheeks damp, a look of determination on her face, ‘And what about Father Maher? Is what your dad was telling me true?’_ _

__He replies that he doesn’t know what his dad had said, and then she repeated what Mike had told her— which wasn’t as bad as it could have been. He knows he told his dad things, _details_ that the man didn’t pass on. Instead the man seemed more focussed on how evil the Catholic Church is, how it’s her fault for being a Catholic at the time, for having Catholic relatives, how he should have known better, should have spoken up when some creepy priest started hanging around his son, how negligent they both were as parents, and all the grooming and the fact they hadn’t seen the grooming when it should have been obvious, and how neither of them had done anything, put two and two together when their son had started acting up the way he did— and when he’d thrown all those bricks through the church windows, how could they think he was just making trouble when it was so out of character? Not that he’d always been a good kid, but fonder of being a smartarse even back then than property damage— and how dreadful it is, to think of him being preyed on for all those years and not feeling safe enough to tell them._ _

__What can he say, other than, ‘No, dad wasn’t lying.’_ _

__She makes a noise then, a horrible, soul-hurt noise, and before he’s thought it through he’s apologizing to her, even though Simon immediately squeezes him and tells him it’s not his fault. Oh God, it’s so embarrassing. He feels like such a twat— then _she’s_ telling him it’s not his fault as well, and he doesn’t know how to handle it._ _

__Anyway, not long after that, while he’s crying against Simon’s neck, Jeremy comes in with tea, handing out cups quietly and calmly, before taking his own inobtrusive seat and letting his mum brutally squeeze his hand._ _

__There are some questions later, once he’s finally stopped crying for a bit. She wants to know how long things went on for, both with Richard and with Father Maher, she wants to knows if either of them badly hurt him— but she doesn’t seem to want to know the details of what they did do beyond that— and she wants to know if Richard took photos of him the way the papers are reporting he did with his victims, whether the police will be able to identify him as one of them. ‘They’ve been destroyed,’ is what Simon says, and he catches Jeremy looking at his boyfriend, an odd kind of acceptance in his gaze._ _

__Then she starts the self-recriminations, like his dad did, but unlike his dad she almost seems to want him to tell her it isn’t her fault, but he can’t say that. It’s not that he thinks it is, necessarily— not at all really. A great whacking lump of him still thinks _he’s_ the one to blame— but he can’t act like he’s never felt hurt or resentful or angry with her for not noticing, for immediately taking Richard’s side, for taking every opportunity she could to have Father Maher take him out of the house for some made up activity so she could have a moment’s peace. _ _

__At the end of it things don’t feel as settled as they do with his dad— his dad who seems almost like he’s finally stepping up to the plate to parent him— but maybe it’s just the novelty if his dad’s recent good behaviour that makes it feel so special— but they do also feel kind of ok. Like his relationship with his mum might survive this— and just as he thinks that will be it, it’s time to go—she brings up him living in the Community Centre. ‘Why didn’t you _tell_ me you had nowhere to live? I would have let you come home— In fact you should come home now. We’ll all go and pack your things—’_ _

__Only he has to tell her he didn’t want to, that he’s happy, or happy _enough_ living in the Community Centre— and how will it work? Her with Jeremy, a new baby on the way, and him wanting to be with Simon all the time. If he comes back there’d be just too much shagging going on of the type off putting to half the house’s other residents. Then he tells her he really is thinking of getting a flat, flushing pink and glancing at Simon from beneath his lashes. _ _

__It’s late by then, the sun’s down, so they stay for tea— even if tea is just a pizza because everyone is drained and feels like shit. No one really says much and they don’t even eat at the table, just sit in the lounge with the telly on— even though he’s sure no one’s actually watching it._ _

__Jeremy offers to drive them home after, since his mum’s exhausted and needs a lie down, but before they pile out after his mum’s husband she tells then that they’re both invited around for tea again, every Sunday, and it’s non-negotiable. So there’s that. It makes him feel a bit better, honestly._ _

__As they’re about to get out of the car at the Community Centre Jeremy clears his throat, looking nervous in the weak electric lights filtering in the car’s windows. ‘The thing in the papers—‘ the man begins, and he feels Simon tense up at the same moment as he does himself, ‘The thing that happened to Richard, I’m— we’re _both,_ me and your mum— we’ve discussed it and we agree that he deserved it, and even if we knew something, which we don’t, neither of us would be inclined to go to the police about what seems to us to be a form of justice.’_ _

__He can’t think what to say for a moment, before the words slip out, ‘Thanks Jezza.’ At that he pretty much has to flee, before things gets even more emotional._ _


End file.
